Poem by Wang Wei in the Cursive Script Style (1256): Art, History and Details

Poem by Wang Wei in the Cursive Script Style (1256) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Song Lizong (Chinese, 1205–1264).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Poem and painting, once mounted together as one fan, exemplify the collaboration between imperial patron and court painter. Emperor Lizong’s calligraphy cites a verse from Wang Wei’s (701–761) poem, Walking to where the water ends, I sit and watch when clouds arise. Ma Lin’s response is this painting. At the water’s edge, a scholar reclines by a large rock. The view leads across the empty middle ground to a distant mountain. With sparse ink and subtly graded washes, Ma Lin visualizes the poetic verse. The painting suggests the impact of Chan aesthetics through interaction between the palace, literati-officials, and monasteries around Hangzhou. The leaf facing Emperor Lizong’s calligraphy has an inscription by Zhang Daqian (1899–1983).

Object facts

• Title: Poem by Wang Wei in the Cursive Script Style
• Date: 1256
• Creator attribution: Song Lizong (Chinese, 1205–1264)
• Culture: China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
• Type: Calligraphy
• Technique: Album leaf; ink on silk
• Dimensions: Image: 25.1 x 25.3 cm (9 7/8 x 9 15/16 in.); with mat: 33.3 x 40.5 cm (13 1/8 x 15 15/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1961.421.2

A detail from the museum

Emperor Lizong had little interest in governmental affairs, but he was perhaps the finest calligrapher among the Song emperors.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E., and Wai-Kam Ho. “Scattered Pearls beyond the Ocean.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 51, no. 2 (February 1964): 23–39.
• Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1980.
• Little, Stephen. “Chinese Calligraphy.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, no. 9 (November 1987): 372–403.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.